Panic Fest 2026 Coverage
Quiet After Supper review
Memoirs of a serial killer.
Festival reviews will not contain spoilers.
Quiet After Supper
Directed by Francis Tejada
Written by Francis Tejada
Starring Bryan Mittlestadt, Larura Cantwell, Emma Reinagel, Del Alan Murphy, Selena Lantry, Jack Villhard and Stepanie Mieko Cohen
Quiet After Supper Review
When is an anthology not an anthology? That’s the question I asked myself after watching Quiet After Supper. The movie is structured like a classic anthology film. A framing story wraps around three extended short films…but the short films are all flashbacks connected to one character. The entire movie is about a serial killer in Los Angeles…the flashbacks show us how he conducts his business. These segments are long…with the trio of them making up most of the film. Just like an anthology would do. But Quiet After Supper isn’t an anthology. Not in the traditional sense, anyway. It’s more of a character study. Given that character is a serial killer hiding in plain sight…it picks a relatively interesting subject.
Tristan (Francis Tejada) is excited to learn that his first old friend and first love Abby (Laura Cantwell) is in town. Her visit sees her inquiring about random artifacts around his home…with each one connected to a story from Tristan’s past. We learn what the item means to him…and how he carries out his secret serial killer lifestyle.
Since Quiet After Supper isn’t a traditional anthology we’ll be forgoing our usual format when covering such films. Instead, we’ll cover the segments more broadly since they’re part of a bigger picture rather than being the main course themselves. Three items, with three backstories, make up Quiet After Supper. The movie begins with Tristan talking to the camera and narrating his own story. It fits with how the three stories within the structure are relayed. Abby arrives and the storytelling gets underway. We learn about their history…something that becomes very important to the point of the entire movie.
The first story we hear involves Tristan entering, and ultimately ending, the life of an actress. We see how he picks his victim, becomes a part of her life and how he kills her. It’s an intriguing way to do a character study. Especially when the second story goes a different way altogether. Tristan meets a terminally ill woman and genuinely befriends her. The third story is about a man he played chess with. In each case he uses fake names and different personas. But they don’t all play out the same way.
Of course, Abbey isn’t getting the same stories we are. He might tell her where the item came from…but the flashback into how he got them is for us. He’s not exactly going to admit to multiple crimes to a woman he wants to think well of him. Which could beg the question “why use her as the framing device for these stories in the first place?” Well, Quiet After Supper has an answer for that.
I’d describe Quiet After Supper as an interesting exercise more than a successful one. It has enough intriguing ideas to paint a fine picture of the serial killer next door. But the flashbacks are long and lack the energy to build Quiet After Supper into anything that entertaining. While it eventually does add up into something that makes sense…the feeling of watching these stories that aren’t even being told within the narrative feels a bit weird. Tristan is a strong character though. Watching him operate is the best thing that the story has going for it. He’s a believable, grounded multifaceted monster. Unfortunately, grounded nature may be part of what keeps Quiet After Supper from soaring.
Scare Value
Quiet After Supper offers up a fairly interesting profile of a modern serial killer. There’s nothing overly exiting about it…but it does have some interesting ideas. Tristan is a good character to study…watching him weave his way in and out of people’s lives is an intriguing premise. Unfortunately, the method chosen to deliver those stories often makes the big picture feel stuck in place. While it ultimately finds a good resolution to the tale…you can’t help but feel like something is missing while you are watching it unfold.
